A Strategic Move
by LuxaLucifer
Summary: "Where were you when I needed you?" Ibiki will make them confront the consequences of inaction, especially when it pertains to him.


Written for my 20 Fandoms Challenge, I thought I'd write a bit of Ibiki fic after all this time. It's a bit surreal, posting an Ibiki fic in 2016.

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"Where were you when I needed you?"

Ibiki asks the question coolly, his eyes roaming from face to face, never settling for more than an instant but always making sure to meet every gaze. The only one that doesn't flinch away is Hatake. To be expected.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asks Shiranui, as though he doesn't know exactly what Ibiki means, as though he hadn't sent every excuse along with Anko for why he couldn't visit him when he needed it. Ibiki knows he remembers. He wouldn't have looked away if he didn't.

Anko is here now, and she flinches because she stopped visiting when Ibiki began to cry every visit, because she had been plagued by nightmares of snakes and the shadows lurking in the darkness and his tears only fueled her pain. He knows that, and he has long since forgiven her. His words are not meant for her.

"You come to me now," he says, expression hard. "Because what? Repeat that for me."

Hagane and Kamizuki shift, their eyes on the floor. Tobitaki and Mibu step back, but Hatake, Shiranui and Mitarashi don't move. This is their idea, he knows now. Guilt doesn't flash across their faces, but he can see it in the set of their shoulders and the shifting of their feet, the way Shiranui lifts his chin ever-so-slightly when he's feeling pangs of remorse.

"You're destroying yourself. You need help," repeats Kakashi Hatake, expression unchanged, one eye still lazily watching him. He is the only one here that can hold his own against the quietly enraged Ibiki. He is the only one here more powerful than Ibiki as well.

"And how exactly do I need help?"

"Tsunade says you haven't come to your last two checkups," says Anko. "That isn't like you. Not at all. Get off your ass, Ibiki."

"We're dealing with a lot of enemy shinobi at the moment," he replies calmly. "I don't have a lot of free time. Hardly a cause for this intervention."

He turns away from them. A strategic move, although he does indeed want his coffee. He pours it into the mug as though a group of people are not watching him with a united gaze.

"Your hands are shaking," says Shiranui quietly.

Ibiki looks up from the coffee. "Get out of here."

They all stiffen except Hatake.

"All of you except you three." He doesn't need to point for them to know who he means, and the others scatter until only Kakashi, Genma, and Anko are left.

"Is this how you thought you should come to me?" he says. "You thought it would be best to address your concerns as a group? With no thought to the morale of my team, or what it would do to my authority?"

His voice is crackling with indignation. They are unfazed.

"We're all worried," says Genma.

"You're just pissed that we figured out you're upset," says Anko. "Sorry, but you're not perfect, big guy, and your mask isn't as good as Kakashi's."

Ibiki knows Anko, and he understands what she means. He is often the only one that does.

"I don't want to think about this," he says, and as the words come out he realizes it is an admission.

"Ibiki," says Genma. "You torture people for a living. _You've_ been tortured. It's okay to not be…well, okay."

Ibiki shakes his head, closing his eyes for only the briefest moment. By the time he opens them he has already remembered too many horrors. "I don't have time for whatever it is you want me to do," he say. "I have work. So do you. Our health pales in comparison to the jobs we perform."

"If you're not capable of performing them you need to step away," says Kakashi. "For as long as it takes."

Anko and Genma exchange an uneasy look. They aren't prepared for the response that suggestion might get. Ibiki wonders what they expected to happen with Hatake there; his disdain for Ibiki is well known, and he doesn't have Ibiki's wellbeing, but rather the village's, in mind.

It is this that makes him take them seriously. Perhaps they knew what they were doing after all.

"Tsunade will not have to wait a day longer," he says, and this means more than they know, because with everyone one of his appointments comes yet another evaluation, because they always need yet more proof that Ibiki Morino's skills are more valuable than the madness they fear lurks within.

Genma leaves without another word, probably because he has things to do, possibly because he is uncomfortable and he doesn't want to spend another second embroiled in this awkward conversation. Kakashi slowly nods at him before turning, pulling out his book before he was even out the door. It is only Anko that is left.

"Why are your hands shaking?" she asks, reaching over and pressed her fingers to his gloved palm.

He struggles to reply, because Anko's eyes are sharp but not cruel and because her question is not born out of fear for his abilities but for him, the person that Ibiki Morino is beneath all the scars.

"Some things are difficult to forget," he replies.

"I understand," she says, and he knows she does. "I would help if I could, you know that right?"

"Of course," he says.

"I mean it," she adds, her fingers sliding off his hand as she crossed her arms. "I absolutely mean every word, Ibiki Morino. I would go into your dreams and banish those damn demons."

"It is not dreams or demons that terrify me," he says, smiling. "Only memories."

His body aches with the past, the lingering whispers of every burning rod and metal flail, of the red hot agony inflicted on him, ghosts of tears long dried every present. He carries so much on his shoulders, but so does Anko, and they both know this.

"I'm getting dango later," she says, uncrossing her arms to wave, coat arcing in the air as she turned. "You can show up if you want."

He finishes pouring his coffee after she leaves. He doesn't spill a drop.


End file.
